Category → Contrickery
Power concedes nothing without a demand
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.
- Frederick Douglass
The real secret of positive thinking
While at a house party a few months back, a girl cornered me with a nice bottle of wine, and started telling me about ‘The Secret’ – a bestselling book and film . I sat and listened, sipping my wine, as the well-educated City financier explained the principles of universal attraction, without any sense of irony .
It was a treat. A true dissertation on the worst kind of magical thinking . Essentially, this chick (and many of her friends) believe that they are telekinetic, and can receive whatever they want just by hoping for it. Needless to say, i re-filled my glass and excused myself. I’d heard about voodoo before.
One of the saddest lessons of history
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
- Carl Sagan